More Freedom, Less Pay In-House? Not Always

Deep Dive

Myths & Half-Truths About In-House Practice

A few weeks ago, on a mentoring call with a junior law firm lawyer, I was struck by how much research she’d done into what in-house practice actually looks like. A lot of lawyers decide they want to go in-house without digging in. She’d gone deep—Reddit threads, blog posts, LinkedIn—and now she wanted to verify.

As she talked me through what she’d read, she asked which parts I agreed with.

The list included the usual myths: in-house lawyers have amazing work-life balance, the work is boring, the pay is always lower, and once you go in-house, you’re stuck there forever.

I laughed. Because I’ve heard all of those before. And while each one contains a sliver of truth, they’re also at least partially wrong.

The reality of in-house legal work is more nuanced, and more interesting, than the myths suggest. Some in-house jobs really are 9-5. Others definitely aren’t. Some lawyers do low-value, repetitive work. Others handle bet-the-company litigation, drive high impact M&A deals, or sit at the center of business strategy.

If you're thinking about moving in-house—or trying to figure out how to thrive once you’re here—it’s worth separating the myths from the truth.

That’s what we’re doing today, starting with my favorite myth about in-house life.

In-House Lawyers Have Great Work-Life Balance

Some in-house jobs really are 9-to-5. You show up, do your work, and log off; there are no late-night emails, no weekend fire drills. But in my experience, across seniority levels, those jobs are the exception, not the rule.

Sure, the billable hour pressure is gone. You’re not spending Saturday morning digging around for work to hit your numbers. But that doesn’t mean you're not working the occasional weekend or late night.

In-house teams are often lean. That means fewer people to cover the same volume of work. And with legal still viewed (at most companies) as a cost center, there’s constant pressure to do more with less. Even at legal-forward companies, resourcing tends to lag behind demand.

So yes, the pace may feel saner than a law firm. But great work-life balance isn’t baked into every in-house role. You still have to be intentional about building it.

Being In-House is Boring or Not Intellectually Stimulating

There was a time when in-house lawyer handled just the daily grind. Anything complex or novel was farmed out to outside counsel. That’s simply no longer true. In-house lawyers handle all manner of complex challenges, and we get to do it alongside the business. Personally, I find it incredibly exciting and often challenging.

However, in-house lawyers do also still need to address the day to day. Whether that’s standard NDA review, negotiation of low-value procurement contracts, or something else, it’s not always exciting. Fine. The most effective GCs and legal departments find way to automate, templatize, and simplify these tasks so that they take up as little of in-house lawyers’ time and energy as possible.

In-House Lawyers Earn Less Than Law Firm Lawyers

Sometimes, yes. I’ve lived it firsthand. When I was Deputy GC at the Boston Globe, I had a 3L intern who everyone knew would be making more than me when she started in Big Law that fall. Was it a little weird? Sure. But it was also the tradeoff I’d signed up for.

Midlevel associates often take a pay cut when moving in-house. That’s partly because they’re nearing peak law firm earnings—while still early in the seniority ladder at most companies. It’s a real shift, and one worth going into with eyes open.

But it’s not always true that in-house lawyers earn less.

Top in-house lawyers at Fortune 100 companies, private equity and other asset management firms, and banks regularly earn high six—and sometimes seven—figure compensation. Are they bringing in the same compensation as the handful of Big Law partners with eight-figure salaries? No. But they’re still doing extremely well, often landing squarely in the top 1% of U.S. earners.

On top of that, some in-house lawyers have the opportunity for equity in the companies they’re helping to build, or carry in funds. These types of compensation are less common in law firms.

And while Big Law partners may top the charts, many law firm lawyers, especially those outside the biggest firms or who are not equity partners, earn less than senior in-house counterparts. Certain in-house roles outpace those jobs by a wide margin.

Once You Go In-House, You Have to Stay In-House

Just as there was a time where the way to succeed in a law firm was to joint as a junior associate, work your way up through the ranks, make partner, and stay there for the next 40 years, there was a time when going in-house meant spending the rest of your career in-house. In both cases, those days are over.

I know a number of lawyers who left law firms to become GCs, stayed for several years, and then returned to the same firm (in some cases, leaving as an associate and returning as a partner). I also have a few friends who left in-house roles to join firms where they didn’t have a pre-existing relationship; in these cases, the lawyers typically had a deep understanding of a particular sector, gained in-house, from both a legal and business perspective. Plus, there are many lawyers who leave in-house roles for government or to start their own thing.

There used to be a limited number of ways to build a successful legal career. Now I like to think of it more as a “choose your own adventure” model. Jumping in and out of private practice, in-house roles, and government, is more common than ever before.

What Matters More Than the Stereotypes

If you’ve heard or believed some version of these in-house myths, you’re not alone.

But the truth is that you don’t need to buy into a single narrative about what in-house legal careers are supposed to look like.

There are in-house lawyers with better hours than their law firm friends, and in-house lawyers answering Slack messages at 10pm. There are in-house roles that feel like legal assembly lines, and others that challenge you to operate as a true strategic partner. There are in-house lawyers earning less than they did in private practice—and others whose comp is high by nearly any standard.

And when it comes to career flexibility, I’ve seen enough zigzag paths to know that the idea of “once you go in-house, you can never go back” just doesn’t hold up.

The better question isn’t whether the stereotypes are true. It’s what kind of in-house role you want, and how to find or shape a job that matches it.

That’s the part that matters.